Oxnard Union lowers minimum budget reserves goal

The Oxnard Union High School District revised its policy concerning budgetary reserves on Tuesday.

Trustees set 3 percent of operating expenditures as the district’s minimum reserves, with a goal of having 5 percent or more.

In January, the school board approved a 6 percent minimum reserves policy. Since then, the district has approved salary increases for teachers and classified staff. The estimated reserves, or rainy day fund, for the next fiscal year is expected to dip slightly below 6 percent.

Assistant Superintendent Stephen Dickinson recommended the district set the minimum as a range of 3 to 5 percent but with a much higher goal.

“As your financial person, I still believe a real goal should be 8 to 10 percent,” Dickinson said. “The next economic downturn is inevitable. It’s just a matter of when.”

State law requires school districts to keep a minimum of 3 percent in reserves. During the recession, some districts were permitted to go as low as 1 percent.

In other school board business Tuesday night, trustees directed Dickinson to renegotiate the price a project management company is charging for two new pools at Camarillo and Hueneme high schools.

California Construction Management is charging the district nearly $146,000 in project management costs, because construction of the two pools took four months longer than anticipated.

Trustee John Alamillo said “$145,000 seems like a chunk of change.”

The pool construction, at a cost of about $4 million each, came in under budget, Dickinson said, but it’s not enough to cover the project management fees.